In drug delivery applications, especially drug delivery to the pulmonary system of a patient, liquid nebulizers are advantageous in that they are capable of delivering a fine mist of aerosol to a patient. A goal of such nebulizer devices is to assure a consistent droplet size and/or flow rate and/or velocity of the expelled droplets to maximize delivery to the targeted portion of the pulmonary system, such as the deep lung.
Some liquid nebulizers use a perforated plate, such as an aperture plate (AP), mesh plate, or vibrating plate, through which a liquid is forced in order to deliver a fine mist of aerosol. In particular, vibrating mesh-type liquid nebulizers are advantageous over other types of aerosolization devices, such as jet nebulizers or ultrasound nebulizers, in that they are capable of delivering a fine aerosol mist comprising a droplet size and droplet size range appropriate for pulmonary delivery, and can do so with relatively high efficiency and reliability. Such vibrating mesh nebulizers can be advantageously small, do not require large and/or external power sources, and do not introduce extraneous gases into a patient's pulmonary system.
Aperture plates manufactured for liquid drug pulmonary delivery are often designed to have apertures sized to produce droplets (also sometimes referred to as particles) of a size range from about 1-6 μm. Conveniently, the aperture plate may be provided with at least about 1,000 apertures so that a volume of liquid in a range from about 4-30 μL may be produced within a time of less than about one second. In this way, a sufficient dosage may be aerosolized. An aperture size of the aperture plate of about 1-6 μm is useful because this particle size range provides a deposition profile of aerosol droplets into the pulmonary system. More particularly, a size range of about 1-4 μm is useful because this particle size range provides a deposition profile of aerosol droplets into the deep lung (comprising the bronchi and bronchioles, and sometimes referred to as the pulmonary region), with a higher effective dose delivered, and concomitant therapeutic benefits. A particle size range larger than about 6 μm may decrease appropriate dispersal of the liquid into the pulmonary region of the lung. Therefore, providing an appropriate aperture size range, and controlling the aperture size distribution, and thereby the size distribution of liquid droplets, is a concern in this industry. Development of a cost-efficient manufacturing process to consistently and reliably manufacture aperture plates having the appropriate aperture sizes has been a challenge for the electroforming technology typically used to produce aperture plates.
Electroforming is a well established plating technology as it has been widely used in the inkjet printer industry. Such devices typically have large geometry apertures (about 10 μm or larger, in some examples). In a typical electroforming process, a metal forming process is used to form thin parts through electrodeposition onto a base form, referred to as a mandrel. In a basic electroforming process, an electrolytic bath is used to deposit an electroplatable metal onto a patterned conductive surface, such as metalized (i.e., deposited with a thin layer of metal) glass or stainless steel. Once the plated material has been built up to a desired thickness, the electroformed part is stripped off the master substrate. This process affords adequate reproducibility of the master and therefore permits production with good repeatability and process control for larger geometry (greater than about 10 μm) apertures. The mandrel is usually made of a conductive material, such as stainless steel. The object being electroformed may be a permanent part of the end product or may be temporary, and removed later, leaving only the metal form, i.e., “the electroform”.
The electroforming process is, however, disadvantageous in many respects. Electroforming is very susceptible to imperfections, and defects at a mandrel surface (e.g., a supporting substrate surface) adversely affect the quality of a resultant aperture plate. As a result, high manufacturing yield and process consistency has remained elusive. A typical aperture plate manufacturing yield is about 30%, and a 100% downstream assembly line inspection may be required because of process variability.
A cross-sectional view of an electroformed aperture plate and a typical process flow are shown in FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B, respectively, according to the prior art. Conventionally, as shown in FIG. 1A, an aperture plate 102 is formed through three-dimensional growth of plating material on an array of dome-shaped patterns 104 with a specific diameter and spacing. The dome pattern 104 is lithographically patterned, and then heat treated on a stainless steel mandrel. The dome-shaped structure 104 acts only as an insulating layer for subsequent plating, precluding accurate and precise control of aperture geometry. The diameter and height of the dome-shaped structure 104 determines the approximate aperture 106 size and shape of aperture plates 102 produced through this process. The spacing or pitch between the dome-shaped structures 104 is a factor in determining the final aperture plate 102 thickness because the aperture 106 size is determined by the plating time, that is, a longer plating time results in a smaller aperture 106 size. As a result, the aperture plate hole density for a conventional, electroformed aperture plate 102 is fixed for any given plate thickness. Because flow rate is proportional to the aperture plate aperture (or hole) density, the hole density limitation of electroforming requires increasing the diameter of the aperture plate in order to deliver a higher flow rate. By “aperture density” it is meant the number of apertures per square unit of aperture plate, such as the number of apertures per mm2. This has a significantly negative impact on manufacturing costs and manufacturing yield, e.g., the costs may be higher and yields may be lower. Moreover, particularly in medical applications, it is often preferable to minimize the diameter of an aperture plate so that the entire device is as small as possible, both for positioning and space requirements, and to minimize power consumption.
Another limiting factor with the prior art electroforming process is aperture size control. As shown in FIGS. 2A-2D, to achieve a smaller aperture 202, the risk of aperture plate hole blockage increases greatly (due to a diffusion limiting factor near the tapered aperture area). The three-dimensional growth has both a linear horizontal growth rH and a linear vertical growth rL. At a large aperture 202 size (typically greater than about 10 μm), there is approximately a linear relationship between the horizontal growth rH and the vertical growth rL which allows for the aperture 202 size to be relatively well controlled. However, once the aperture 202 size reaches a smaller dimension, the linearity no longer holds, and controlling the aperture 202 size becomes difficult. This non-linearity typically starts at aperture sizes of about 10 μm or smaller, such as smaller than about 9 μm or 8 μm or 7 μm or 6 μm. As can be seen in FIGS. 2A-2D, the longer the growth time, as indicated by the time (t) values in each figure, the thicker the layer 204 becomes and the smaller the corresponding aperture 202 becomes. Because the thickness 204 and aperture 202 size are interrelated during the three-dimensional growth, plating conditions must be monitored and modified during the plating process if the final desired aperture 202 size is to be achieved, and this is not always successful. In some cases, as shown in FIG. 2D, the growth of the aperture plate may fail due to the layer being overgrown which causes the apertures 202 to close. It is well known in the art that plating thickness 204 can fluctuate, sometimes by over 10%, across the plating layer due to inherent limits of this process technology. Again, this makes it very difficult to control both the final aperture plate thickness 204 and aperture 202 size.